Looking for the positive in life while living and learning in Greencastle, PA

A greater victory

About this blog

By Stephanie Ziebarth

Stephanie Ziebarth won national and state awards before choosing to focus on family and ministry rather than a career in magazine journalism. She spends most of her time homeschooling her children and coordinating Joy El Generation's Barnabas
...

Stephanie Ziebarth won national and state awards before choosing to focus on family and ministry rather than a career in magazine journalism. She spends most of her time homeschooling her children and coordinating Joy El Generation's Barnabas mentoring program, though she occasionally writes for local and national publications. She and husband Aaron Ziebarth have three children.

My niece Cianna and I walked down Bloody Lane hand-in-hand. Also known as the Sunken Road, this farm lane in the Antietam Battlefield was the sight of unspeakable violence during the Civil War.

It was sobering to walk down the pathway on a beautiful day, knowing that about 150 years ago, bodies were “lying in rows like the ties of a railroad, in heaps like cordwood mingled with the splintered and shattered fence rails,” as one observer wrote.

Cianna and I climbed up the edge of the sunken lane to view some informational signs. As I pointed out to her a graphic conveying how many soldiers fought and died in that place, she looked up at me and asked, “Was it the good guys or the bad guys who died here?”

Her six-year-old innocence shone from her beautiful brown eyes. Her lovely tan skin and dark curly hair stood out to me as I considered how to answer her question.

We had talked in the car about the ugliness of war, and how all the deaths were tragic. We had discussed that not everyone who fought in the war thought it was about slavery. But at this moment for Cianna, whose father is African American and mother is Caucasian, the issue was pretty black and white.

“Many, many of the good guys died trying to capture this spot,” I carefully responded to her question, “but it was the other guys whose bodies lined Bloody Lane.”

The Battle of Antietam was a draw, in that no one could claim a victory after the atrocious fighting. But the Battle of Antietam made the Emancipation Proclamation feasible, and prevented Great Britain from coming to the Confederates’ aid when the Southerners were unable to prove themselves strong enough for a victory in Union territory.

It also made Cianna’s precious life possible. And for all of us, that is a victory.